Word: funke
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...your mouth and you'll find it's indigestible. Thankfully, and refreshingly, kitsch-pop masters Pizzicato Five can still render postmodernism an enjoyably tasteful joy ride. They trip through safe and smiley TV-land in a jalopy heap slapped together from '60s and jap pop, hip hop beats, funk threads, classical samples, bossa nova riffs and exotica, running on smooth easy-listening gas. Maki Nomiya and Yasuharu Konishi blend and blush an all-Japanese soundtrack to the imaginary lifestyle of the international playboy/girl set. "Rolls Royce" is experimentally clever but strung on an annoying shrill that detracts from adorable bubbletunes...
...inventor in his laboratory. But encountering Glover in this reprise of a show he did last fall is a little like being with Ford in Dearborn--or, more appropriately, Joyce in Dublin. Freed from the constraints of setting that defined him in Bring in 'Da Noise/ Bring in 'Da Funk, Glover and a small troupe create a phenomenally entertaining evening that's as emotionally eloquent as it is joyous. If your definition of a creative genius requires that the designee originate a new art, then Glover could be the paradigm...
Sure, Jammin' 94.5 is in full effect back there, but the smooth beats don't nearly compensate for the rank funk in this space. You want to take care to separate your paper trash and silverware from what goes on the conveyor belt, but the mind-numbing odor leads many to just drop and bail, squeezing their noses like four-year olds jumping off a diving board...
Think nobody these days knows what "Funk" means (besides what happens after a workout...
Think again, Lee Fields, known as "Little J.B." to his friends "throughout the global funk community," has made a valiant effort to resurrect what he considers the fallen genre of "rough, nasty and genuine" '70s funk in this album. What the album lacks in musical talent (the band and the background singer have a few problems with consistency and staying together, and Fields himself isn't exactly James Brown), it definitely makes up for in character. Funk was played to bring smiles to people's faces and motion to their feet, and Let's Get A Groove On certainly does...